A Smoke Break

andrew definitely loves to nap. i just know he gets exhausted from having to be around people at class (and generally just deal with the human species) and as a result, needs quiet time in bed to be able to make it through the rest of the day. especially with their late night practices. and when i say nap, yes i do mean i think he takes naps in the traditional sense where he’s falling asleep for a little while but i also think he just likes to get in bed midday to just rest and reset. like just to be in the dark and not have to deal with anyone while he is horizontal and tucked in. tell me you can’t see it

(also imagine neil finding this out. i feel like some days he would join andrew but knowing andrew is doing this to be able to mentally handle the rest of the day, he would know to give him space and respect that. and when he does join him, sometimes he’ll be invited to just lay next to andrew but a lot of the times he just gets in his own bed and rests too, just providing some quiet company. dorm beds are tiny, even for them, and there’s no way to comfortably avoid contact and the last thing neil wants to do is push andrew’s boundaries especially when he is doing this to reset. but andrew lets him stay in the room when he does occasionally join and i feel like neil would be pleased at that alone, at being able to partake in and witness this ritual of his even without cuddling.)

sorry i became obsessed with saving you. it’s just that i began to see you as a proxy for myself and thought that maybe if I could fix you i could learn how to get by

somehow i survived finals week and moving out……… still up in the air if i have any brain cells left and the next few days will not feel real but hey now i can drown myself in aftg all summer 🤭

Don't FUCKING argue with me. "Neil Josten let his cigarette burn to the filter without taking a drag. He didn't want the nicotine; he wanted the acrid smoke that reminded him of his mother." Is a fucking dynamite intro!! Is it edgy as fuck? Yeah. So? Is it hella melodramatic? Probably. So? Is it bad writing? Motherfucking NO! It's damn near expert level execution of several writing principles!

Who is the story about? First two words, next question.

Catch the reader's attention as soon as possible? "Why the fuck is he wasting a cigarette?" Intrigue successfully demanded, next question.

Raise questions that will keep the reader hanging long enough to have answered? "Why the fuck does acrid smoke trigger his mommy issues?" + "Wait it's because he burned her corpse??" Many many more questions raised + blind sided reader via preconceived expectations being subverted, next question.

Character establishing moment? What other characters use for physical and emotional regulation, he uses to fucking reminisce and wallow in his feelings, next question.

Set the tone for the rest of the story? Edgy, melodramatic, and emotionally gut wrenching, NEXT. FUCKING. QUESTION!

The Muses asked Nora to roll for Hook and she rolled a nat 20 five times in a row in 30 words or less. Hook, Line, and motherfucking Sinker bitches

Some of y'all need to stop ragging on AFTG's writing and start using it as a fucking case study cus this shit has the addiction capacity of heroine and god help the goddamn saltine cracker throwing stones

neil josten definitely picks at his scabs. and it annoys aaron to no end. imagine that aaron just starts swatting at his hands whenever he tries to pick at scabs because he can’t deal with neil having them for any longer. and andrew just lets him because he knows it’s better if neil actually lets his injuries heal and honestly, it’s funny

i see fics all the time where neil and kevin are siblings with wymack as their dad but i never see kevin and dan as siblings with wymack as their dad. like dan is his daughter 100%, that’s his girl 😭❤️

imagine that jeremy knox has cowboy boots shoved in the back of his closet. jeremy knox who has a matching cowboy hat. jeremy knox that knows line dances. jeremy knox that has a complicated relationship with them because “he is not my grandfather” but a part of him loves the dances anyway. jeremy knox that teaches jean line dances after cat discovered jean doesn’t know how to dance and made it her mission to introduce them to him. jeremy knox who mimics tipping his hat. jeremy knox who sees jean picking up on the dance enough that he pulls his boots and hat from the back of the closet to show it to him properly. jeremy knox who learns to be okay loving line dances through doing them with jean. jeremy knox line dancing

sorry to report but i will never stop being insufferable about neil and his bandana

little something bc I’m not posting a big piece this week

Love them

all i can imagine is aaron having had to deal with neil being a capital-t terrible patient for hours on end because you’re right, he would not behave. like he would be trying to get up every few minutes, especially when aaron steps out to check on one of his other patients which means aaron feels the need to be in neil’s room more so that he doesn’t injure himself and aaron isn’t accountable for his dumb ass decisions. and neil would be lying about the pain to try to get himself discharged early. even after aaron turns up the morphine drip (or whatever it is lol, my medical “knowledge” comes from medical dramas), neil is still lying through his teeth and aaron is just like what the actual fuck. because there no way neil isn’t in pain, he’s actively bleeding cause he pulled his stitches trying to get out of bed like an idiot

and then andrew arrives and neil is still trying to say he is fine and can be discharged. and aaron is blocking him out, too busy freaking out over his look-alike and too tired to deal with neil’s obvious lies. but andrew is arguing back and calling him a junkie and all aaron can focus on is “omg his voice sounds like mine too wtf wtf wtf”

he must make some sort of noise, a gasp or that choking in the back of his throat is accidentally vocalized, cause next thing he knows neil is sliding him a cool glare (and again, how the fuck is he still acting like this on so much morphine) and switching to german. his doppelgänger rolls his eyes but follows him into the other language and now aaron is even more convinced that he is losing his mind. screw whatever his coworker said, he no longer believes her. they’re both exhausted, why should her mind be trusted more than his own. clearly this is some sort of hallucination because no way he encounters someone who looks like him, sounds like him, and speaks german too. he needs to listen to katelyn and get more than 5 hours of sleep before a shift and stop having multiple energy drinks. that’s what this is. there is no other reasonable explanation.

he goes to leave the room, needing to escape the insanity and completely okay with leaving one character of his hallucination to deal with the other. he’ll come back. he has to and hallucination or not, he will not be a bad nurse. just maybe after he asks his charge nurse to check his vitals.

he gives neil’s monitors a quick look over and tries to ignore the two arguing in german. but hey its not his fault he can understand them, even if he’s trying to not listen. but then neil says something about needing to be back on the court by thursday and he’s reaching for his IV line like he’s going to pull it out and before aaron can stop himself, he’s saying “don’t,”quick and angry in german and covering neil’s IV with his hand. two sets of eyes whip around to stare at him and that’s it, he’s fleeing. he will deal with this later.

An AU where the twinyards don’t meet until even mater in life— as in after college where everything from Andrew’s end goes almost the same minus Aaron and Nicky being in his life. He still makes it Palmetto, still meets Kevin and Neil and goes pro. Aaron on the other hand becomes a nurse (I have my reasons for this) never goes to Palmetto, and they only meet because one injured Neil Josten ends up on his unit. Aaron is about at his wits end because Pro Exy player Neil Josten (whoever that is because Aaron doesn’t follow Exy), who is on a lot of pain meds, keeps calling him Andrew and Aaron is about 5 seconds away from making the on-call resident very upset by requesting another CT scan of Josten’s head because surely his brain is scrambled. There’s nothing more that Aaron wants than to go home and fall face first into bed which is of course when his charge nurse walks up to him with a sheepish look, nearly begging him to stay another 4 hours because his relief’s kid is apparently sick and she can’t come in until 11am, which makes Aaron want to die so naturally he agrees, which means another 4 hours of Neil Josten at the end of his shift hooray.

And so of course Neil Josten calls him “Andrew” once more while Aaron is checking his IV (note: it’s now visiting hours), and Aaron, exhausted and cranky and just had to dodge a bedpan being thrown at his head, feels his eye twitch violently as he politely (read: thru clenched teeth) reminds Pro Exy Player Neil Josten once again that he is not Andrew—

Which is when another voice pipes up from the doorway, fresh scent of coffee in the air that nearly has Aaron salivating, who says “correct, you are not Andrew. I am.”

And Aaron turns around to see his mirror image standing in the doorway.